Everything Burns
by Forbidden Koibito
Summary: YAOI! CloudVincent : Cloud goes to the Forgotten City to run away from everyone who needs him, and finds someone who needs him more than he could have imagined.


**Author's Notes: **Umm . . . wow. On behelf of myself and S.E. Campbell, we're _really_ sorry. I can't believe it's been over a year and a half since either of us have done anything on our stories! Well, I could make excuses, but you can find those on the profile page, because that's what I'll be updating next . . .

This story is our repentence. I worked my rear-end off on this tonight. Over half of it was written since I sat down on 11:30, and it's now twenty to three in the morning. I wanted to be in bed nearly an hour ago! Oh well, it's all for you guys!

Hokay. So here's how it went down. If you don't know how we work yet, please check out our profile page. SEC played Vincent, and I, HBM, played Cloud and fleshed out the story.

Forgive us if they seem OOC, but you've got to think here, _two _angst buckets? That's a little much. Need some happy!!

(_On a side note, the song I'm listening to right this second happens to be the song I'm basing the final chapter of this story on. :D Yes, you read it right. Though they will be put up seperatly and such, it is a four-part story.)_

ENJOY!!

III

The rain hadn't started until the dull roar of Fenrir's engine came to a soft silence. At first it was a light pitter-patter against the leather attire he was donning, then, as he began descending to the lake's edge, a slow drizzle.

Grey and silver branches crunched under his heavy boots as he marched to his final destination. He hadn't the slightest inclination to why he had come here again. Everything had been said and done. Kadaj, Yazoo, Loz, and even Sephiroth, had been taken care of. The children had been saved, and he was cured of the virus that plagued him for years. Everything should have been, perfect.

Yet he still felt drawn to this place. Was it guilt that he still hadn't let go? Cloud had been so sure that he had put everything out of his mind, especially after seeing Zack again. He thought, for a moment as he continued the trek to the water's edge, that maybe he was guilty on Zack's behalf, but quickly dismissed this thought. It was a silly, nearly desperate attempt to explain himself.

The rain fell harder now, and Cloud shivered. This place still gave him the creeps, but here he was, back at the lake were Aerith was laid to rest. Ice blue eyes scanned over the surface, like he was expecting to see her body simply floating there. Cloud shivered again and a wisp of guilt rose up in his throat. He crossed his arms over his chest.

When Cloud shivered a third time as the rain began to pour, he felt familiar eyes on him. He consealed a petite smile and hugged himself a little closer.

"How long have you been watching me, Vincent?" His voice sounded distant, even to him, but he knew the Ex-Turk had heard him when the slight shift in the wind blew against his wet face.

After a pause, the dark voice responded, "Long enough."

His eyes fixated on the very spot he had stood two years ago as he laid Aeirth to rest, Cloud responded, "Any particular reason?" The faint sound of Vincent's metallic arm clinking against the tree he had been stalking behind reached his ears before he felt the others' presence next to him and crimson eyes prying for answers and explanations.

"I was already here, yet, I've seen you come here many times."

"I think more clearly here." Cloud sighed, his eyes still trained on the still water. He crossed his toned arms across an equally fit chest. "Maybe it has to do wit Aerith." he finished. The air around him shifted softly, Cloud could only assume Vincent had nodded.

"I see," Vincent started, "you still cannot forgive yourself."

Cloud stole a glance at Vincent in that moment. He was staring out at the water as he had been, eyes full of understanding, his demenor exuding compassion. It wasn't pity, however, just two men simply talking life.

He returned his azure gaze back to the water. "Yeah, but it's not for the reasons you think,. She was meant to die, to save us all, but me? How do you forgive yourself for not living the way you meant to?" Cloud faced Vincent for the first time that night to meet with the Ex-Turk's openly surprised stare.

"You believe you have lived your life incorrectly." Vincent's voice had betrayed the shock in his eyes, his tone never-changing from his normal raspy tone.

Captivated by his beautiful red orbs, Cloud replied, "Something like that." He watched the tattered cape sway in the slight breeze for a moment before meeting his eyes again.

"Why would you think that?"

The blonde adverted his gaze again, this time to a small hole he had unconsiously dug with his booted foot. He pondered the right way to answer a very loaded question such as that.

"Because I'm not happy." It had been the first time he had admitted it aloud for ears to hear other than his own.

Vincent had arched an eyebrow at this, but followed Cloud's eyes to the same intrusion of earth and held it there with his stare. " . . . not happy?"

Cloud was getting flustered in a somewhat childish manner, running his hands through his blonde spikes before placing them on his hips and groaning.

"The orphans," he started. "They're great kids, but I'm not ready to be someone to look up to yet. I'm twenty-three years old, and what do I have to show for it?"

"You've saved the world twice, Cloud. I doubt anyone else can live up to that." Vincent said with a sense of confidence. He shrugged, "I am far older than you, and have 'nothing to show for it' as you say."

"You saved the world too," Cloud said with a small smile. He tasted the question on his lips before asking it, venturing a little further than nessecary. He looked at Vincent with a spark of curiousity. "What would you have done differently?"

" . . . many things." Vincent replied. Their gazes were broken when Vincent indicated his golden claw-arm. "Yet, had I done things another way, I would not be standing here like this."

In a cat-fashion, Cloud reached slowly for the shiny object that was Vincen't hand and forearm, afraid to cross an invisible boundary line. He strectched his fingertips until they brushed the cool metal gently, noticing the flinch from under them. He looked into Vincent's crimson, and again shocked eyes, silently asking him the question that fear prevented his lips from forming.

"One of Dr. Hojo's experiments thirty years ago." Vincent supplied.

Cloud retracted his hand as though he had been fatally burned and returned to crossing his arms back over his chest. "Sorry," he said quietly.

"Don't be," Vincent demanded, "You had nothing to do with it." Their eyes locked again. "I am also unable o forgive myself for things, Cloud."

"Do you think," Cloud started slowly, weighed down by a sudden wave of regret, "maybe we've commited something unforgivable?"

Cloud and Vincent's eyes were still fixated in a sort of fascination on the others'. They seemed to be getting closer and closer, but they couldn't tell for sure.

"It's possible, but sometimes . . . we have to move on as best we can. Our sins follow us, but we cannot be denied life from them."

"Life." The word rolled of Cloud's tongue, liking the taste of it for the first time. "She died so we could live it, and I've been holding myself back."

Vincent sat next to the water, bending his knee so that he could rest an elbow on it, while the other leg stretched out in front of him. "Perhaps the best way to forgive yourself is to start over. You're still young."

"What about you? It's not too late." Cloud joined him on the ground, pulling his knees to his chest and hugging them loosely.

Slightly off-guard, Vincent asked, "You believe I can.?"

A rare, small smile graced Cloud's pretty lips, and he offered it to Vincent. "You're Vincent Valentine. I believe you can do anything."

Vincent blinked a few times, stunned. "Thank you, Cloud."

Cloud hid his blush-tinted cheeks. There had been something about the way Vincent said his name making blood rush to places other than the evidential cheeks. "I should be the one thanking you, not the other way around."

Seeing the rosey color on the other male, Vincent leaned closer, curious. "Me? And why is that?"

The blonde moved closer to Vincent against his better judgement. He brushed the tip of his nose over his lips, his mako eyes flickering between the latter and his crimson eyes. "Because you make me happy."

"Cloud . . ." Vincent inhaled deeply at the feeling of the Ex-SOLDIER so close to him, and resisting the inner demons to just take the beautiful boy, "How can I possibly make you happy?" He could feel Cloud's breathing, hard and heavy on his lips, so close to the others'. Vincent was snapping, he could sense the chaos flickering in his eyes as Cloud moved that much closer.

"You can start by listening to that little voice in the back of your head that's tell you to take me." Cloud had said it, so smoothly, so innocently, but so devillish all the same, and Vincent could stand it anymore. He buried his human hand in Cloud's unruly spikes of blonde and pulled him into a ravenous kiss.

Butterflies danced through Cloud's stomach in a heated waltz as he pushed closer to the demon, wrapping an arm around Vincent's neck with a lust-filled moan. He felt the cool metal of his clawed hang brush his cheek as his red, tattered cape fell lifelessly to the rocky ground. Cloud slithered craftily into Vincent's lap, only removing his lips from his momentarily to resituate before attatching them again for another flurry of kisses. Nimble fingers skillfully began disregarding his armor, freeing him of any boundaries, and Vincent gladly helped him.

Armor forgotten in the rush for nudity, Vincent broke their kiss again, moving immediatly to attack the blonde's pure neck with soft bites and healing lips. Cloud thread his fingers through the long black hair of his lover, and gasped ever so softly when he ran the golden hand up his sweater. He shivered, al beit the wamrth of the caress.

As quickly as the hand had arrived, it left, leaving only goosebumps in it's wake. It returned to pull at the zipper, slowly exposing innocent and untouched inches of skin. Cloud moaned, he wanted to be naked, and for Vincent to be the same. He yanked the shirt over his head, disregarding it with his armor.

Impatiently, Cloud frowned, tugging on Vincent's leather apparel with a silent demand that it be removed as soon as possible. Shock crossed Cloud's eyes, following another wave of lust when a hint of a smile formed on his demon's lips. He watched, still silent, as Vincent took off his top blockade.

They drank each other in. Fingers balleted over the others' chest, unmarred and angellic to the touch.

"I bet you've wanted to see that for a while." Cloud teased the older man.

Vincent didn't miss a beat and he smirked. "You'd be right about that." He pressed his lips over every curve and dip in Cloud's chest, pulling them as close together as he could. He lied him down on the earlier discarded scarlet cape, hot and needy nips continuing down the warrior's toned abdomen.

Cloud's hands splayed across his chest with a very encouraging moan from his kiss swollen lips as he opened his legs enough for Vincent's lithe body to settle between them. He arched into the bathing kisses and purred for his lover. Coyly, he reached further between them and cupped the still cooped up erection in Vincent's leather attire, making him moan hungrily, followed by a low, frustrated growl.

"These are cumbersome," Vincent stated in regard to Cloud's labrynth pair of pants.

The blonde didn't bother to supress the girlish giggle that fled his mouth, twisted into an amused smirk. "Why do you think I don't get laid very often?" He assisted the older male in removing the troublesome garment.

"Oh?" Vincent teased the now free shaft with a few leisurely strokes. "And just how many times have you been like this?"

With a breathy, impatient moan, Cloud responded, "Three."

"I can see why." Slowly, deliberatly, Vincent lowered himself along Cloud's body, and licked the underside of the dripping erection.

Cloud's breath hitched in the most eroctic way possible, and he squeezed Vincent's cock harder, but not painfully. His hand was quickly removed and he was being pinned by his wrists.

He had Vincent say "Let me do this for now," and then his head was spinning, his lungs moaning for nearly everything they had. Vincent had taken his erection all the way in, and he couldn't get think straight to save his life, or anyone else's for that matter. "Vin..." he managed between his panting and thrusting upward into the delectable warmth of his lover's mouth.

Vincent hummed in reply around his penis, and Cloud threw his head back, the vibrations so much to take in.

"I...need you, please." Cloud begged.

Vincent complied to his plea and removed his mouth from Cloud's erection. He crawled up Cloud's body again, striking with those beautiful blue eyes of his. "Then, I'll take you, since you asked so nicely."

Together they removed the only garment standing in the way of everything, Vincent's pants. They were tossed away carelessly.

"I want to feel you..." Cloud nipped Vincent's collar bone, "...feel this..." then kissed his cheek, "all the time." and finally kissed his parted lips.

For the first time, ever, Cloud could say that he saw the Great Vincent Valentine blush, and he smiled.

"Then you shall have me from now on." Vincent traced the part in Cloud's lips with his human digits. "Here, take them in."

With a smile, Cloud complied, hungrily lapping at them until Vincent decided that they were sufficiently slick. With a throaty moan, he reached his lubricated fingers between them and carefully began to prepare the warrior, scissoring the muscles and brushing delicatly over a sweet spot that made Cloud's eyes clench shut in time with his easy thrusts.

"Vincent!"

He withdrew he fingers and shifted as to position himself. He looked into his eyes again. So beautiful. "Yes, Cloud?"

Cloud brought his hands around Vincent's neck and pulled him down for a heart-fluttering kiss. "I, I love you."

At the confession, Cloud was filled, and both of them moaned softly.

"I never thought I could love someone again," Vincent paused, "but I do love you, Cloud."

The blonde buried his face his the crook of Vincent's neck and moaned quietly. "I need you."

"You will always have me." Vincent whispered. He began a slow, steady pace within his lover, suppressing the need to be rough with him. Legs curled behind him with encouragement, and a breathy sigh.

"I'm glad," Cloud moaned.

Vincent growled deep in his throat and pulsed harder inside him, and their hips met in sync. Sweat glistened from their sculpted bodies in the basking moonlight of the lake.

"C-Cloud!" Vincent came into his young lover, relief and satisfaction washing through him. Cloud followed him after, stuttering on the syllables of Vincent's name with a violent shudder.

They stared at each other, completly lost and not willing to be found.

"Cloud..."

Cloud cuddled Vincent into his neck and nuzzled his cheek. "Hmm?"

Vincent sat back to look at his nude hero and smiled. "You make me happy."

Cloud returned the smile and blushed. He blinked, surprised to feel a single silver tear plummet down his cheek.

Vincent's fingertip brushed the droplet aside. "Don't cry, Cloud." He kissed him full on the lips.

With a smile, and a bit of shame, Cloud pulled away from those gorgeously curved lips. "I...sorry. I don't know where that came from."

The very corner of the crimson-eyed man's lips curved into a grin. "It's alright."

"So," Cloud drawled playfully, "I guess this means you're mine now."

Vincent eyed the hero with an arched eyebrow and a small smirk, leaning down to brush his lips against Cloud's cheek. "I suppose so, though, wouldn't it be the other way around?" he replied, uncharacteristically whimsical.

Still as teasingly, Cloud tossed, "I guess so, that is assuming you can meet my demands."

"Sounds like a challenge." And Vincent was ready to accept.

"Maybe it is."

III

...TBC...


End file.
